


Let's dance the night away

by thequadraticformula



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cancer, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 19:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21104837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequadraticformula/pseuds/thequadraticformula
Summary: Dahyun was going to miss out on her school dance, but Momo wanted to change that.





	1. Let's dance the night away

**Author's Note:**

> This work is crossposted on Wattpad and Asianfanfics under the user 'thequadraticformula'.  
DO NOT REPOST THIS WORK.

Kim Dahyun was a transfer student two years my junior. Despite our age gap, it didn't take me long to notice her out of the hundreds of students in our school. She stood out from the crowd in more ways than one.

She was loud. Not in the obnoxious or rude kind of way. She seemed to always have a joke to crack or laugh about and no matter how many times I passed her from the shoe lockers at the front of the school into the halls of classrooms, I would always find myself drawn to the familiar sound of her hearty laugh and the bright nature of her voice.

She had a legion of friends that seemed to hoard around her as she talked in the mornings. I have never seen so many junior high school students gather around one person before. She must have been so popular. The crowd always caught my gaze as I walked past her into the halls, and it would always be that smiling, laughing girl in the thick of them all.

Her body language was so expressive. You could almost guess what emotion she was feeling in every word she spoke. Hand gestures and expressions were the centre of her talk, everything she said becoming just that little bit more interesting as she expressed it. Sometimes I thought that most of the fun from her stories would come out of her dramatic expressions and frantic movements.

And then there was her hair. She'd only transferred a year ago, but it seemed like she had been here for longer because I couldn't count the amount of times, she had dyed her hair on one hand. It was almost as if her hair was just as expressive as the rest of her body. Every new colour brought a slightly new feel to the aura around her. She'd gone from blonde to green to bright pink, to sea blue and among a crowd of dark hair, she stood out. She was like a walking rainbow.

In conclusion, it was impossible not to notice Kim Dahyun even when I never saw her in class.

Watching her every morning and afternoon became a habit in the first year of her transfer that my best friend Sana began to call creepy.

"Wouldn't you be weirded out if someone you didn't know just stared at you every day?" She would say and then drag me off to class. Every day it was the same. I would look for the little walking rainbow and be disappointed as Sana dragged me away and her laughs faded into the drone of conversation.

It was her hair that made me finally pluck up the courage to go up to her.

It was simply a normal day. I placed my shoes in my locker, pulled on my slippers and stood, looking around the room as I usually did in search of Kim Dahyun. But no matter where I looked, I couldn't see her. In fact, the entire day consisted of me searching for the girl. She was nowhere to be found.

When I had finally given up and Sana had stopped bugging me about being a creepy stalker, it was the end of the day and time to leave.

I actually didn't see Dahyun for the rest of the week. It was only when my walking rainbow had disappeared that I was able to see Dahyun again.

The next week, she returned to school. I knew she had returned because the crowds had returned. The laughter was here again, but I couldn't for the life of me pick her out from the crowds. Had she recoloured her hair again and I just couldn't recognise her?

All of a sudden, I found myself walking toward the crowd at the lockers. I heard Sana calling me, but I didn't listen. When I had walked most of the way there, I spotted her. I was right. She had recoloured her hair... or she had gotten rid of the colours all together. She was her same happy, smiley bubbly self, but her hair was its natural dark brown hue.

I was kind of shell shocked and stared at her, probably with my mouth wide open like an idiot. She made eye contact with me just as she was about to make her way to her class. I don't think I ever saw her eyes properly before. They were dark, like her natural hair colour, but in a different way. They seemed to be full of emotions she wasn't ready for anybody to see. In that brief moment when our eyes met, I knew that I wanted to be the person she would open up to.

"HEY MOMO WE'RE GONNA BE LATE!" Sana yelled from behind me. Dahyun's face moved into a grin so that her eyes almost disappeared, and a giggle escaped her lips. I knew she was laughing at me, but I couldn't look away or find it in me to be embarrassed. I could only think one thing. Kim Dahyun was looking at me.

I felt a pair of hands land firmly on my shoulders.

"Sorry Kim Dahyun-ssi." Sana said and she squeezed my shoulders a little too hard which pulled me out of my trance. I looked at the floor in embarrassment. "Momo's not usually like this."

"No, no." Dahyun laughed. My ears rang with the sound of it. It was, from that moment onwards, my favourite noise. "I thought it was funny." I looked up to see her bow, ready to leave.

"My name's Minatozaki Sana by the way." Sana said as she began to drag me away. "Maybe we'll talk again someday."

Sana was right. We did talk again.

I don't really know how it happened, but Dahyun began to hang out with Sana and I during lunchtimes. I thought it was a little strange. We were hanging out with a person two years our junior we hadn't ever talked to previously. Dahyun gained strange glances every now and then from her classmates, but she integrated into our weird duo seamlessly.

We were joking around like we had been best buddies forever in less than a year.

Though Sana and I had been friends since before we moved to Korea together ten years ago, Dahyun just seemed to click.

Everything I had assumed about Kim Dahyun while looking at her from afar had been proven true as I slowly became her friend.

She was so kind and loving, often going out of her way to make kimbap for Sana and I which always left us both ecstatic and our stomachs full and happy. She was really good at making it and was quick to figure out that my favourites were the ones full of pork.

On those days that she decided to make it, she would always hold it behind her back, then ask us both: "Guess what I have today?" Sana would always laugh in that bubbly way of hers and reply: "I have no idea Dahyunie. What is it?"

She would dramatically reveal a cloth bag from behind her full of the goodies and smile charmingly.

"KIMBAP!" The way she said it always made us laugh.

I could always feel my stomach growling and my mouth watering in the moments before she would hand me a piece.

"Here's some for piggie Momo." She always said.

She was also a great listener as I heard from Sana. I didn't like to talk about my problems to others, so I didn't get to experience it first hand, but Sana was sure to tell me of the times when she poured out her heart to the younger girl.

"She didn't say a thing out of place! It was like a miracle!" Sana exclaimed. "She's like the perfect friend." I agreed.

She was so perfect, that I began to worry when it would all stop. Nobody can be this amazing. Everyone had their weaknesses.

I only started to see them when Sana began to date her.

At first it all seemed too good to be true. I had an amazing best friend and Sana had the most loving girlfriend she could ask for. I never felt like a third wheel when I hung out with them and they seemed to get along really well and loved each other so much.

Then Sana asked her out to the dance for our graduation.

"Please come with me Dahyunie! It'll be fun!" She said, grasping Dahyun's hands gently in her own and looking at her lovingly. The dance was in about half a year's time and Sana was desperate to prepare for it so it would be the best night of her life. She'd told me so many times in the past.

Dahyun, of course, didn't hesitate for a second to say yes, but I saw something like panic in her eyes as she did so. Barely a glimpse, but I saw it none the less. There was something wrong.

I was right when I thought something was wrong because Dahyun pulled me aside the next day.

"Can I talk to you?" She asked at the shoe lockers before school. Her face was pale, and she looked like she felt sick. "I just gotta tell you something without Sana interrupting." I obliged but was still wondering why she couldn't tell her girlfriend what was bothering her.

She took my hand and lead me down the halls and into the girl's bathroom near her classroom. Once she had checked that nobody was there, she let go of me and turned around to look into my eyes. She swallowed before speaking.

"I'm sick." She told me. "I really didn't want to say anything originally, but you have the right to know." My chest was tight. "I have cancer and I'm going to die." She said with a grimace, then after observing my expression she glared. "Please don't treat me differently."

I didn't know what to make of what she was telling me.

"And please don't tell Sana. I'm not ready to drop that on her just yet. I was actually diagnosed the week before we met, so I've been keeping this from you for a while. I'm sorry."

I didn't know if I was supposed to cry or ask her a question or get angry that she hadn't said something sooner.

I felt my eyes tear up, but I was quick to wipe them.

"It's not a big deal." She mumbled, but I watched her eyes waver and her knees shake. She was in my arms the next second, sobbing and shaking telling me over and over again that she was sorry.

That was one of the only times that I ever saw her break down like that about her situation.

As soon as the tears calmed down and I was sure she was ok, we walked out of that bathroom like nothing was ever said. Like she hadn't just told me that she was going to die. Like there was nothing wrong.

When I watched Dahyun kiss Sana and talk to her during the lunchtimes when we met up, I felt sick. I wanted desperately to say something. Watching my childhood best friend fall into a situation like this without her knowing was horrible to watch, but I understood why Dahyun would want to keep it from her for now.

Dahyun told Sana a week after she told me. I wasn't there when it happened, but I know it would have been teary and loud and messy. Sana was one to overreact when things didn't go her way, and Dahyun's imminent untimely death was something she definitely didn't want.

She had to go into the hospital soon to get a round of chemotherapy.

"I'm gonna lose all my hair, so I wanted to go the hairdressers to shave it all off so it's not annoying when it starts to fall out." She smiled when she said this which made me want to cry. "I want both of you to be there with me." She looked at the ground but continued to smile.

Sana immediately enveloped her with a soft hug and covered her face in kisses.

"Of course, we'll come and support you." She gushed. "My beautiful little Dubu."

On the day of the appointment at the hairdressers, she seemed her normal bubbly self. When we walked in, she was laughing, smiling and even making jokes with the man who was cutting her hair, but as the clippers sliced through each strand of that beautiful dark hair, she slowly became quiet.

She looked at herself in the mirror as huge chunks fell to the floor. The hair that she had taken so much pride in. The hair that she had made that beautiful rainbow all those months ago. A part of her died with the removal of her hair.

I could see it in her eyes as she was soon left with a close shaven scalp. Sana was crying and holding Dahyun's hand and talking calmly to her. The guy who cut her hair noticed it was a serious situation and backed off after he was done, allowing Sana to talk to her girlfriend in peace.

I didn't have time to cry or whisper comforting things in her ear. I was on my own roller-coaster of memories and emotions that I couldn't figure out. I didn't have a walking rainbow anymore.

I drove Dahyun home. Sana had to meet a friend for a school project in her elective. Dahyun didn't sing to her favourite songs. She didn't crack a joke. She didn't stick her head out of the window like a dog or make funny faces in the rear-view mirror. She just sat in silence, her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes fixed on the road ahead.

I pulled up outside her house and walked her to her door, but before I could wave goodbye, she suddenly began to cry. They were silent tears, but her mouth opened wide as if she were in pain.

I hugged her tight and kissed her face and whispered in her ears like Sana did. I wonder if my kisses did the same things as hers did. Was I good enough? Did she mind that in her darkest moments she wasn't with the one she loved the most?

Graduation came and went as if time was being sped up. Dahyun went to the end of year dance with Sana and I'm pretty sure that they did some aggressive cuddling once they had gotten back home.

Before we both knew it, Sana and I had to get jobs and apply for university and actually think about how we were going to survive in the real world. But I was struggling.

Dahyun had deteriorated dramatically during the last two years and her last year of school had mostly been spent in the hospital. I wanted to spend all my waking hours with her. I didn't want her to be alone.

My time spent at the hospital with Dahyun came at a price. I was failing my degree. I had lost my job. I was pretty much living off cups of two-minute ramen in my empty apartment whenever I was forced to leave the hospital when visiting hours were over.

Sana was a bit better at supporting Dahyun and herself. She came in every afternoon after her lectures and spent most weekends with her. Whenever she would walk through the door, she would always have a mountain of goodies and a huge grin painted on her features. Dahyun's face would light up and some of the colour would return to her cheeks. She would reach out her hands to her girlfriend and I would momentarily be asked very politely to "GET OUT!" so that the two could have some alone time.

I didn't really know what to do with myself anymore. After Dahyun had been admitted to the hospital again after she contracted an infection two weeks ago, I had devoted my life to being there for her. I didn't spend any time with my friends from university. I missed seeing my family when they flew over a few days ago. I was pretty sure that I had lost more than two kilograms as a result of missing lunch to save enough money to pay my rent and buy my ramen cups for dinner. It was as if my body was a computer that had erased every memory from it. Everything except the image of my walking rainbow and the sound of her laugh and the shape of her smile and an indescribable longing to be with her at every single moment of every day.

I didn't have the motivation to do anything. All I was able to convince myself to do was get up in the morning, walk to the hospital because petrol and public transport were too expensive and sit myself down in the worn-out chair with a hole in the padding and wait for Dahyun to wake up.

She was probably getting sick of me. She probably hated that I was always there. She probably wished it was Sana. But at least Sana was able to hold her life together. Mine was slowly falling apart.

I think she pretended to be asleep sometimes, just so she didn't have to talk to me. Sometimes the nurses angrily asked me to leave because I wouldn't leave after visiting hours. Sometimes it was Dahyun who asked me to leave.

"Why are you still here, Momo?" She was only half awake, but her voice was stern, and her expression was hard. "Just leave me alone for once. Don't you have something better to do?"

But the thing was, I didn't. I had nothing better to do. This was the best thing I could think of. Keeping my best friend's girlfriend company. How pathetic.

One time when I was leaving Dahyun's side to go to the bathroom, I bumped into Sana.

"Momo!" She exclaimed and hugged me tightly. Usually Sana's hugs were the best things in the world, but today I just felt exhausted and gross. I don't think I slept a wink last night. Sana pulled back and held me at her arm's length. Plastic bags were slung over her shoulders, probably filled with food. My stomach growled at the thought.

"You've lost a lot of weight, haven't you?" She frowned. "You need to eat more Momoring! _You're_ starting to look like the cancer patient." She grimaced at her own comment, and I looked at the floor, embarrassed. I had managed to keep my financial situation out of Sana's radar. If she realised that I was almost completely broke and unable to afford my own dinner, she would freak.

"Momo, I know you've been spending all your free time with Dahyun, but how about you spend some time on your own? Some free time for yourself? It gets so claustrophobic in that room." Her eyes shone in the synthetic lights of the hospital. "I'm worried about you."

I just shook my head and pushed past her to the bathroom. Once I had relieved myself, I didn't know what to do. If I went back to Dahyun's room now, she would just yell at me to leave. There was also a high probability that they were making out and I didn't want to see that.

I leant my head against the stall door as I sat on the closed toilet seat and felt tears run down my cheeks.

"The dance is in two weeks." Dahyun said to me. It was out of the blue. We had just been sitting in silence, Dahyun reading a book and me sitting feeling sorry for myself. I looked up at her and was met with a blank expression. "I asked Sana to go with me, but she said that she's worried that I'll be too sick to go."

I didn't know what to say to that. Everyone knew she would be too sick to go.

"She's been looking at me different." She muttered, staring at the wall ahead of her as if I didn't exist. "She kisses me and hugs me and tells me that she loves me, but I can see that she's scared of me in her eyes. She's scared because she thinks I'm fragile. I can see it. She wants to get rid of me before I get destroyed by cancer."

I shook my head again and again and reached forward to take her hand. _That's not true. She loves you. She cares for you so much. She's just worried that she'll lose you._ Her hand was so thin and cold. She turned to me slowly and looked into my eyes.

"You're the only person who hasn't changed." She said. Oh, how wrong she was. But before I knew it, she was kissing me. Before I slipped away into euphoria, I jerked away roughly.

What was she doing? Wasn't she worried about Sana? Didn't she love Sana? Didn't she worry about getting sick? I felt my cheeks heat up and tears spring to my eyes. This wasn't fair. This wasn't right.

"Stop acting like you don't enjoy it." Dahyun laughed. It was a sad sort of noise, like the last air hissing out of a balloon. "What Sana doesn't know won't kill her. I've never cheated before," She said, her expression curious. "I want to experience it before I die."

In the moment before she kissed me again, I looked into her eyes and saw an abyss of fear. She looked pale and thin. Her eyes were sunken. Her hair was gone. Her irises were dull, and she was so, so afraid of what was happening to her.

But past all of that, I could still see what she had been like before the cancer took her body. She was still beautiful even when her body had been reduced to skin and bone. I was crying when I spoke.

"You're so beautiful." I mumbled and even though she was using me, I let my best friend kiss me softly.

It was the night of the school dance, and just like Sana and everyone else had predicted, Dahyun was much too sick to be discharged. Even worse, Sana had been held back at work and was unable to spend the last of the visiting hours with her girlfriend. So, I sat with her in silence.

I wished more than anything in the world that I could switch places with her. I wanted her to wear that beautiful red dress she had picked out with Sana a month ago when she was out of hospital. I wanted her to walk through the doors of that school arm in arm with her girlfriend. I wanted her to feel the pulse of the music through her body and the heat of the party. I wished she could go to that dance.

Then I had the craziest idea. If Dahyun couldn't go to the dance, maybe I could bring the dance to her!

I stood from my chair and gently pulled her from the bed. She protested weakly.

"Hey! You're gonna disconnect my IV!"

Once she had settled into my arms, I moved her hands so that they rested on my shoulders and I wrapped my hands around her waist. Realisation fell across Dahyun's features as she realised what I was attempting to do. She laughed half-heartedly.

"But there's no music." So, I started to hum. It was a little off key and wobbly, but I managed some sort of tune and I swayed her gently from side to side.

"This is dumb Momo." She said, looking embarrassed, but despite her protesting, it wasn't long before she gave into the movements and rested her head on my shoulder.

I remember that night so well. I wasn't kicked out at the curfew like before. I think the nurses were watching us.

When I did leave, Dahyun was asleep and when I got home, I saw a message on my door. If didn't pay my rent next week, I would be kicked out.

I lay awake for hours until I saw the sun peeking through the windows and that's when I got the call.

Then I turned on some music and pulled out my last cup of ramen and ate it without the hot water. The song was in a major key. The music and the singing was bright and cheerful, but the lyrics made me want to cry.

_ **Shout as if today is the last, far far away** _

_ **Jump as if you're flying, higher and higher** _

_ **Shout as if today is the last, far far away** _

_ **With the spilling starlight, let's dance the night away** _

~TWICE - Let's Dance the Night Away~


	2. HAPPY HAPPY

None of this was fair. None of it.

It wasn't fair that I had to work so long that day. 

It wasn't fair that I had gone to sleep without a care in the world.

It wasn't fair that Dahyun was gone.

It wasn't fair that Momo had to deal with it alone.

None of it was fair.

I awoke the morning after Dahyun's dance. The one that she couldn't attend. I turned my head to the side, feeling the excitement build up. That bubbly feeling I always found in my stomach on the weekends. 

The weekends were the days when I didn't have classes or work. I was completely free. 

Dahyun's face popped into my mind and my heart squeezed in joy as I sat up, stretched and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I could see her today. I thought to myself. I would have to buy her some flowers or some more goodies to apologise for not being there for her yesterday.

I turned to my bedside to grab my phone and check the time.

I had one missed call from the hospital. Dread flooded my body. 

I opened the phone to check for voicemail. I didn't need to listen to it.

_This isn't fair._

Before I let the grief overtake me, I called Momo's number. I forced all my concentration to focus on her. Was she alright? Did she get a call too? 

The phone rang five times before she picked up. I heard shuffling as if somebody was readjusting their position before Momo's voice was heard on the other end.

"What." She said. Her voice almost broke my composure. It was flat. There was no emotion.

"Momoring, are you alright?" I asked, forcing my voice to remain steady and calm. I breathed though my nose and continued to push the impending thoughts of Dahyun to the back of my mind. Momo is here. Momo is the one I'm talking to right now. That's all I needed to know.

I heard her shuffle again. She sighed, long and deep.

"I'm ok. It's you that I should be asking." 

I didn't know what else to say, and the reality of the situation suddenly came upon me.

"Sana?" 

My ears were ringing and my vision was blurry.

"Sana, are you still there?"

"Yes." I said quickly before rushing to my closet to find some clothes to change into. "Momo, we're going out to meet Dahyun's family ok?" 

Momo didn't answer. My hands were shaking and when I tried to pick up a pair of pants with my free hand, I dropped them. I cursed to myself. I've always been such a klutz.

"I'm coming over to pick you up." I said. Then I hung up.

I spent that morning rushing around like a mad man doing anything to lead my mind astray. I got dressed and bushed my teeth and brushed my hair and did my makeup and brushed my teeth again and washed my hands and washed my hands and washed and washed before I found my way over to the door.

I wish I had never gone to see Momo. 

I came to the door and saw a notice on it. Momo hadn't payed her rent for what seemed like six weeks. A lump formed in my throat when I knocked.

"It's open." A voice called from the inside.

I wish it wasn't open.

Her apartment was filled with rubbish. What seemed like hundreds of ramen noodle cups were littered on every surface. There wasn't a sign of furniture besides a chair that lay on its side, dejected near a wall. That wall had a dent the size of a person in it. Someone must have thrown it. The blinds were shut and the heater was off, leaving the room in a wintery state of cold. Walking into the apartment was like walking into a fridge. And in the centre of it all lay a girl. Her clothes were dirty. Her hair was unwashed. She was so frail and thin. She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling with tears glistening in her eyes. 

In the background a song was playing. It infuriated me because it sounded so happy.

"Momo, what the fuck." My tears came then. Not because my girlfriend had died, but because my best friend was killing herself.

Momo laughed slightly and lifted a hand that seemed to be made from skin and bone to wipe away her tears.

"Sorry you had to find out about me this way." She mumbled before sitting up from her place amongst the rubbish. "I'm going to get kicked out of here." She said. "I have no money."

I could only stare at her with my mouth wide open, the tears flowing freely.

Then she started to sing.

"**_Always, whether good time or bad time, We'll share it till midnight, With the same feelings, up and down down, Whether it's joy or sadness, We'll share it.._.**"

Her voice was so soft and gentle and full of sadness, but the song was happy. The song was loud and fast and happy and it wasn't fair.

"_**I feel happy happy happy, I have faith. No matter how many years in the future, No matter how many decades in the future, I wanna be with you.**"_  
  


"Stop it." I told her. But she didn't stop. She looked up at me and continued to sing.

"_**I feel happy happy happy, I'm able to do anything. No matter what the obstacle, I'll be able to overcome, That's why I wanna be with you.**_"

This wasn't fair.

None of it.

~TWICE - HAPPY HAPPY~


End file.
